Standoff over Sarasota Orchestra building renovations

Tuesday

Jul 30, 2013 at 7:09 PM

Changes to the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center has the arts group, city manager and city attorney at an impasse.

By JESSIE VAN BERKEL

The orchestra wants to finish renovations before its season starts in September. The city manager wants Sarasota to have a reputation of being easy to work with. City attorneys want to protect Sarasota financially from unpaid work or incomplete projects.

Those goals have landed the three at a standoff over changes to the Sarasota Orchestra's Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center.

The City Commission weighs in Wednesday.

The situation started this month when the orchestra approached the city about repairing acoustic ceilings, bathrooms, the exterior, lighting and the stage. It also wants to replace parts of its heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

The orchestra leases its building from the city. The lease requires the organization to use a general contractor for such renovations and that contractor must provide a payment and performance bond. The bond would protect Sarasota if the contractor defaulted on the construction obligation, and would guarantee the bills and subcontractors are paid.

Instead of a general contractor, the organization used an owner's agent and a “straw man” contractor on its building permit for this project, wrote Assistant City Attorney Joe Mladinich in a memo.

Florida law also says that if a tenant of a public building wants to do more than $200,000 worth of work on it, the tenant needs to provide the city with a payment and performance bond.

The work the orchestra is proposing totals nearly $460,000, according to the permit application submitted to the city.

Instead of one large project under a general contractor, the orchestra presented the work as smaller projects, all under the $200,000 requirement for a bond. That violates Sarasota procurement code, Mladinich wrote.

The symphony just views the projects as a bunch of routine maintenance that was put off because of the tough economy, said Sarasota Orchestra President and CEO Joseph McKenna.

Barwin understood that approach and took a practical look at what they are trying to achieve, he said.

“There's no one trying to circumvent anything here,” McKenna said.

Barwin met with McKenna last week. The city manager said he believes the orchestra can proceed without the general contractor. But he asked the city attorney for his opinion.

Attorney Bob Fournier replied that Barwin does not have authority to change the terms in the lease and the city commission cannot waive Florida statue.

While the orchestra could very well follow through with its projects and everything would go smoothly, Fournier said this would set an undesired precedent.

“It would seem that doing this would undermine the City staff's efforts to ensure compliance with the lease terms, not only from this tenant, but from other tenants in similar situations with similar lease requirements,” Fournier wrote to Barwin.

“If this happens and results in a cost to the City, I would caution that you would have to accept responsibility for an administrative decision to vary the lease terms because I cannot endorse it,” he said.

The situation comes down to legal interpretation of a ridiculous law, Barwin said.

“Are we going to interpret to the umpteenth degree, to put extra time and cost on a very, very credible organization?” the city manager asked.